Mint Mentos+2-liter of Diet Pepsi/Coke = Minor hillarity during a work break. Warm cola tends to work better than cold, 5-10 mentos seems to more than do the trick.
There - that might just sell some otherwise undrinkable/inedible snacks!
I like the idea of more people getting more information information - I think that would be truly in the public interest.
However... If the government is providing access to the Internet, I don't want too many of them to then feel that they are responsible for the bad content that people will have access too. As if they as a government have injected things into a family that they then need to clean up.
I'd only support such an idea if it also guaranteed full protection censorship on the base connection. Filtering of any kind must be optional, and without a legal presumption of decency even then.
The worst outcome here would be if people started decrying the presence or abscense of some religious ideal on the Internet... and had a legal basis for pushing to 'resolve' that complaint. Crime should not be special for being internet-based, not all rule in every community need to be applied to everyone, and communications shouldn't be less free for being wide-scale because of this proposed set of laws.
Fairly entertaining, but only a few pages so far. He doesn't seem to have lost much of his sense of humor after all these years.
On a related note - I checked ebay recently. Steve Purcell's comics have become surprisingly valuable - found out my copy of "Sam & Max: Surfing the Highway" is worth hundreds. I'm keeping it though - it's the one comic I own, and it's worth the humor.
I don't think that the argument from most proponents of government-provided WIFI is that it is a right by any means. Rather, it is a privilege which, if given to everyone as part of goverment services, would benefit society as a whole at a much greater level than the costs involved. This idea may be false in terms of the result of such services - but the idea itself does not involve artificial rights of man to goverment services.
It's the same as with public transportation by bus - it's not something that is a right that has to be given to everyone, but rather a sound logistical choice that builds a stronger, freer society than would exist otherwise.
Now, it is true, if government-provided WIFI is seen as important to people, it could become established as a service people are unwilling to let goverment drop, but that's another issue. It still wouldn't be a right. The only right people would have to WIFI is the right to use it as they see fit, however they get it, so long as they are not violating others rights in doing so.
Remember the 9th and 10th ammendments to the bill of rights -
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Rights are the freedoms of mankind, not something they are granted by government. Don't let your fervor against goverment action blind you into making strawmen arguments against those you disagree with. There's may be valid arguments for government services, and they don't have to involve government granting new rights.
Anyone know when the date is when MS will stop making security patches for Windows 2000?
I've been avoiding getting newer versions of Windows with any of my new machines I've gotten or made for quite a few years now, and have no plans on ever using Windows XP on my home systems. Will I have to look to third parties for future flaws found in the various Windows 2000 bugs that will be discovered?
This scheme reminds me somewhat of some of the (intentionally) money-wasting schemes of the movie Brewster's millions. Large machines sent thousands and thousands of miles to mechanically move an almost unimaginable ammount of water, along with the fuel needed to do all of this large-scale de-facto terraforming (aquaforming?).
That...or the Futurama episode where it was revealed that global warming had to be fended off with giant ice cubes from Haley's comet every once in a while.
What this scheme ammounts to is a color shift of a rather small portion of the earth's ocean, for a rather small ammount of time, and enormous cost.
You could achieve the same dynamic by:
A) Using some cheaper coloring to semi-permanantly paint large portions of land environments with an already severely limited biological environment, including deserts, rocky areas, upper mountain ranges, near-permafrost (permafrost is already white most of the time), etc. Longer-lasting and cheaper than the ice-cube in the ocean effect. Could be undone with darker color later if needed.
B) Genetically engineer and feed cryophillic bacteria with light pigment in near-arctic ocean areas. Either have it continuously expell bouyant light-color material as part of the life cycle, or else have the body stay boyant and un-edible by further bacteria after death. If this is feasible, and self-sustainable, we'd have a meaningful, if limited engineered biological terraforming. Similarly can be undone with darker color later.
Those are just two quick ideas - I'm sure there's a lot others that would work to do color-based terraforming. Are there any special reasons why this barge idea would... hold water still above such ideas?
Don't know if you're interested, but you might want to check out Richard Carrier's Sense and Goodness without God. Even if you might disagree with the premises of the author (metaphysical naturalism), I've found it a great read so far on these topics.
I, for one, welcome our happy, upbeat, responsibility-denying overlords! May they ever smile at whatever disaster unfolds before them! They don't need to avoid any prophesies of doom - they can embrace them and enjoy the support of all they bring with them into an unknowable oblivion. Hooray!
It's not pessimism if you WANT the world to end!
[/insanity]
Really though, this article reads much akin to a classic story of political gamesmanship. People generally would rather be lead to a horrific war on words of false hope than actually deal with the uncertainty of complex politics. Labelling optimism and pessimism as stark good or bad is a misleading guide to live your life - one should rather feed one's emotions as they need to, while striving to look at reality as clearly as one can. It'll never be an easy game to play, but it's easier to improve one's outlook through honesty than many would suspect.
If Google were to have implemented a whitelist that was managed by China, and only allow a search based on this, I'd agree with the spirit of these criticisms completely. However, the implementation that exists seems to leave plenty of room for people to find ways to know that they can access real information despite the limitations. Having a common search engine with the rest of the world will allow an easier path to the "grey market" of outside oppinions than may otherwise be unavailable to casual searchers.
Still, this level of "cooperation" with the Chinese censors shows no inherent sign that Google won't be ratcheting up their limitations on the engine even further... I see no limits in place to make sure further corruption won't happen. Perhaps behind the scenes, they exist, but in the context, I do agree with this part of the criticism of Google's actions.
Still Google as it now exists is a nice window in the firewall of China, even if it has been smudged. At least it's open enough for open source projects of various sorts to know how to build a door for those interested.
A legitimate approach to governance is that you should give people what they want, and nothing else. From that perspective, this is cynical, but appropriate. Give people bread and circuses, and you can say you're doing your job as a politician... but how many politicians hold a valid claim to be doing their job as honorable human beings?
It would be nice if I could just wash my hands of politics, insist that the least governance would be the best, and just vote for those who would leave power in the hands of individuals more and more, in light of the constant incompitence of politicans... but I've also seen the affects of what "small goverment" can do over the past years. I've decided to vote Democrat in the next forseeable elections, because at least they seem to propose to, and have in the past few administrations, use public resources to do more than just celebrate their own personal interests. Perhaps then, at least, the Republicans will learn to compete again in terms of function, not just rhetoric. I'd hate to see this last batch of Republicans rewarded for their actions.
Active defenses (such as counter-exploding tank armor) aren't there to avoid damage - they're there to mitigate against the worst impacts of damage against catastrophic losses. A REAL explosion underwater is going to generate catastrophic noise, and will directly kill and otherwise fatally affect a lot of native life - a counter-blast of sound isn't much to compare, even in select "false alarm" situations.
It may help to think about it this way: Automobile air bags cost a lot of money to install and repackage in the case of false alarms. They're even dangerous in many circumstances. Despite that, we still install them as default. Even if they had to emit nature-destroying toxins as part of their operation, we'd still be using them by default - because the mitigating costs of not using them would be a much worse environmental impact for most every person involved.
If the effect became pronounced to the point of actually permanantly damaging large ammounts the sea-landscape that torpedoes themselves would not cause, then we'd have something to protest about - but the proposed use is a very good one, presuming it actually works technically.
What we may want to worry more about is the potential misuse of "torpedo-invulerable" nuclear submarines, if it ends up that there's no realistic way of attacking them otherwise... I think this is only a temprary tool anyway, until better submarine-destroying tools are invented.
I wonder how many man-years it would take to listen to all the music and video that could be indexed. Be interesting at least to find out what the order of magnitute would be - millions, or perhaps billions or trillions of man-years of unique recorded audio and video? It would have to be a game of gross estimation - but it would at least put into perspective how much material is out there, even if most of it is boring "security" footage, compared to the scope of our lives.
It'd be interesting, if, perhaps in a couple generations, we could have a cheap media volume that contained "recorded media, prehistory - to - 2050ad"... if the media that exists today even survives a couple generations, and copyrights aren't extended indefinetly. The idea of an indexing system that can even put all that information into a meaningful context would be fascinating to consider though, if it could be possible.
Hmmm.... I think I'll have to alter my game design a bit...
Let's see, yeah - the main character will now be carrying around an arsenal of flower-based projectile seeders. Upon hitting the target, these "horticulture tools" will instantly spread a rather red blotchy flower, possibly dripping petals. People will be so enamored by these lovely blooms that they will instantly transcend their ugly everyday lives, given enough flowers, and fall to the ground in pure bliss - possibly with a soul-shattering scream of freedom.
Some people will be driving around in horticulture-tanks, which do massive seeding. Upon sufficient counter-seeding, these tanks will celebrate the wonder of the event by launching short-range non-violent fireworks, breaking down once they are satisfied that their flowery job has been complete.
The flowers will be everywhere - breaking down walls, flooding innocent cities, carried by massive armies of rabid horticultualist monsters. Apparantly, many people in the game world will be flower-phobic until properly administered to with a variety of area-affect flower spreaders.
Thanks, California, for providing the perspective we need to make games imaginative, once again!
Step 2, get a single-shot gun on that puppy, and let a local controller make the decision on whether or not the bot can take the shot from a short distance. Have a soldier then reload the shot, and repeat.
Step 3, have a single controller controlling a small set of turrets, each have many bullets, but a very limited firing rate, and low-calibre. These are mostly used for guarding, but can auto-locate and prioritise potential targets for highlight to the user as they appear. Guards are replaced. A speaker system will warn long before any shots are taken, and will require keyed permission before any weapon may be fired.
Step 4, fully-automatic, mobile turrets with extremely basic quasi-AI. Simple patrol routines, many bots to a controller, controller is given the highest priority input at any given time, though each device still requires digital oversight before a weapon may be fired. Speaker and microphone system allows basic use in social settings. Simple anti-theft devices are unsuccessfully installed to prevent black market aquisition.
Step 5, regular quasi-infantry replacement. Still no regular AI, but simple stair-climbing and object manipulator add-on components allow regular use of this cheap, modular little turret. Increases patrol coverage ability of the reduced-size army, and is used even in the most quiet occupied zones. Emits teargass or similar irritant if not opened correctly, and each device has a fairly unique set of openning steps. Becomes the common fictionalized face of the modern army.
Step 6, increased use and acceptance of such tools allow isolated private use of non-lethal mobile turrets. Wars and occupations that used to be implausible even today are actively considered. AI is still considered taboo on these units, but they do get more advanced quasi-AI never-lethal automatic modes with simple yet elegant rule sets for more situations.
Step 7, news reports of incidents and possible tragedies involving these units no longer phase much ofthe occupying nation's citizens. All controlled-weapon-robotic activity are redundantly monitored, and the guilty are regularly punished - the system is widely trusted and highly valued. Simple social-use AI robots gain a small level of utility (rather than entertainment), and limited acceptance. The solar system has a wide array of weak-AI devices, both public and private, on each planetoid. The use of humans in the army is mostly that of tactical oversight of unmanned weapon platforms of many types.
Will the end result be a good thing... can't tell. But something like this progression seems innevitable given existing technology, and the needs of both our economy and the perception of our military circumstances.
She still had to pay her defence costs in this case - hardly unusual, but very much a threat against those who don't want to settle. Yes, they can use this case as precident, but the costs of any court case just won't be acceptable to most of the people here in the U.S., who are living in a constant state of debt. This leaves the threat of bankruptcy as a legitimate tool of terror in the hands of the content distribution organizations, and any other corporations that decide that preying on the weak to settle is a legitimate financial strategy.
We need some corporate anti-terror legislation to stop corporations from acting to terrorize citizens. We already have too much historic and current legislation running the other way around. Of course, we used to just call it organized crime when applied to corporations, but terror as a political label is in fashion these days.
China seems usually slow to use their power - they try asserting control over something carefully. Markets, freedoms, social networks - they can all be controlled, as long as you assert yourself very slowly over decades. They seem to have had some level of respect for the Internet, though it has gotten away from them in many ways, they're likely very used to that with social networks. But, like with America, the exceptions aren't so dangerous as converting the easilly convinced that the freedom of the internet is not as important as loyalty to the state.
Now, they seem to be getting more confident over their control - or else just want to send the message that they are confident. Is this confidence real, is it a false message, or could they be fooling themselves? I for one can't know - but it seems fairly conservative compared to the controls they could exert. It remains to be seen how they will enforce this, or try to make these new rules matter in the minds of their citizens.
The other source of confidence, of course, would be in the inability for outside forces to act against the growing market importance of China. China has done a great job of controlling the markets they act conservatively to control - now they get to reap the growing political benefit of that control. Perhaps eventually, their sheer political mass may allow them to finantially eliminate critics afar... I for one fear the day they begin to truly adopt intellectual property laws. Not because they are an especially malicious force compared to other governments, but because they are humans concentrating a great ammount of power, who may begin to assert ownership of ideas more powerfully than ever before.
Since they're "detaining" people without charging them with crimes now on a fairly large scale, in cases where they don't want to be forced to show their evidence in a public setting, they'd need this loophole to track people who they feel they unfairly have to release for what they feel are political reasons. Seems a consistant, if highly corrupted logic.
Reminds me of the British legal tradition of jailing people without any right to a speedy trial. Seems like we created a constitution in order to get away from that kind of thing.
Nothing unusual happening here! Terrible storms are nothing new - just read your local popular religion book describing a big flood!
Volcanos! I'm sure there's some volcanos somewhere that sprouted these hurricanes!
More completely new study! No scientist anywhere has any real data on this subject - we've got to study for at least another, oh, let's say decade before we can really say anything! For funding... I think it's the responsibility of the education department to decide how much of their funds we've allocated to them they want to shift towards this vital research into this great controversy tearing apart the scientific community.
Butterflies! I think I heard Australia has had a large run of butterflies. If this continues, I can't imagine the destruction that may continue - we must eliminate the Aussie threat!
Retribution of the supernatural! My accupuncturist said something about ghost chi causing these problems. We should be devoting at least as many resources as the whole fundamentally flawed "science" thing towards looking into the many REAL causes of human failings and the natural retribution any number of things would have towards humanity. We're angering ancient noodly forces here, people - WE NEED TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT THIS.
We can't keep going on this path - we have to stop puting our faith in "facts", like these. If we do that, all we'll end up doing is succumbing to the environmentalist myth! We can't do that - we can't just change our whole lives everytime some verification of a threat to our lives comes about - we've got to push foreward and make sure our existing economy never fails to meet the exponential demands we HAVE to place on it!
Nah - iRNA is a subset of mRNA (see your link), which is all a subset of RNA. mRNA is so fascinating to me because of the ranges of messages that can be sent, and what all those interactions really mean. So far it seems that various kinds of mRNA, not just iRNA can be used ultimately to manipulate DNA on and off to help us see what the whole of DNA ultimately can functionally mean.
Again, I'm just a layman on the issues - and find it deeply fascinating in terms of the pure science of it.
Using it, many, many parts of DNA can be turned off, and countless experiments can be done to find out exactly how we work. mRNA seems to be the scientific advancement we needed to spark the next revolution in the understanding of our most basic mechanisms. It is by turning things off that we can see most of what was hidden to us this far.
Already, it has some medical use, in reducing the further damage of macular degeneration caused by excessive production of blood vessels in the eye. And it's only just begun.
There's a lot of justified hype here. But so long as it can allow for real progress of science, I'll be happy - research in general needs some general PR on the public stage. Hopefully private and public interest in general research could at least be put in a positive trend for a while at least.
In the words of the fictional "MC Hawking", what we need more of is science.
The first priority of damage control for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is not to save lives. It's to mask blame. Not that there isn't blame to go around - but the talking points going around are built to make all blame seem equal. To make it seem like any one of the politicians involved in this disaster had the same ability to help save people, and Republican politicians who did not help did nothing wrong compared to everyone else.
Having a radio stations where people affected could speak their minds openly, or even potentially openly would hurt this damage control.
While I can understand some system in place to reactively deal with potential scams, ESPECIALLY given such a huge disaster as the whole gulf coast... I agree that the way PayPal has implimented their automatic system is rather, well, awful.
SomethingAwful has a lot of (crazy) enemies - it's not surprising that they would get a lot of gadflies out there submitting complaints, even at the cost of relief money going to flood victims. And I agree - if there was any sign of a scam going on, someone should have called to verify the events, or had a better way of cutting the account than leaving everyone's money in limbo.
In the meantime, SomethingAwful really should join another site's charity link, and work to resolve this in a way that gets those funds ultimately to that place.
Clinton got his two nominees, looks like Bush will get his two also.
Just hope this won't immediatly swing the issues of legal abortion and religious coersion too far to the right when all is said and done. Right wing judges aren't insane, but they are at least as activist on their core issues.
Corportations don't tend to do basic research. Basic research tends to not pay for itself, so of course companies won't pay people to essentially search in the dark for unique combinations that will mostly waste money. Public research is needed to ensure that the basic, foundational expansion of human understanding occurs regardless of what the market makes profitable.
Slashdot Mirror
Image
Mint Mentos+2-liter of Diet Pepsi/Coke = Minor hillarity during a work break. Warm cola tends to work better than cold, 5-10 mentos seems to more than do the trick.
There - that might just sell some otherwise undrinkable/inedible snacks!
Ryan Fenton
I like the idea of more people getting more information information - I think that would be truly in the public interest.
However... If the government is providing access to the Internet, I don't want too many of them to then feel that they are responsible for the bad content that people will have access too. As if they as a government have injected things into a family that they then need to clean up.
I'd only support such an idea if it also guaranteed full protection censorship on the base connection. Filtering of any kind must be optional, and without a legal presumption of decency even then.
The worst outcome here would be if people started decrying the presence or abscense of some religious ideal on the Internet... and had a legal basis for pushing to 'resolve' that complaint. Crime should not be special for being internet-based, not all rule in every community need to be applied to everyone, and communications shouldn't be less free for being wide-scale because of this proposed set of laws.
Ryan Fenton
Steve Purcell has created some interesting interactive online comics on their site at:
a link=8367058FE9CC052C2FEB69468A83EE4C.txt
http://www.telltalegames.com/comics/samnmax/?perm
Fairly entertaining, but only a few pages so far. He doesn't seem to have lost much of his sense of humor after all these years.
On a related note - I checked ebay recently. Steve Purcell's comics have become surprisingly valuable - found out my copy of "Sam & Max: Surfing the Highway" is worth hundreds. I'm keeping it though - it's the one comic I own, and it's worth the humor.
I don't think that the argument from most proponents of government-provided WIFI is that it is a right by any means. Rather, it is a privilege which, if given to everyone as part of goverment services, would benefit society as a whole at a much greater level than the costs involved. This idea may be false in terms of the result of such services - but the idea itself does not involve artificial rights of man to goverment services.
It's the same as with public transportation by bus - it's not something that is a right that has to be given to everyone, but rather a sound logistical choice that builds a stronger, freer society than would exist otherwise.
Now, it is true, if government-provided WIFI is seen as important to people, it could become established as a service people are unwilling to let goverment drop, but that's another issue. It still wouldn't be a right. The only right people would have to WIFI is the right to use it as they see fit, however they get it, so long as they are not violating others rights in doing so.
Remember the 9th and 10th ammendments to the bill of rights -
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Rights are the freedoms of mankind, not something they are granted by government. Don't let your fervor against goverment action blind you into making strawmen arguments against those you disagree with. There's may be valid arguments for government services, and they don't have to involve government granting new rights.
Ryan Fenton
Anyone know when the date is when MS will stop making security patches for Windows 2000?
I've been avoiding getting newer versions of Windows with any of my new machines I've gotten or made for quite a few years now, and have no plans on ever using Windows XP on my home systems. Will I have to look to third parties for future flaws found in the various Windows 2000 bugs that will be discovered?
This scheme reminds me somewhat of some of the (intentionally) money-wasting schemes of the movie Brewster's millions. Large machines sent thousands and thousands of miles to mechanically move an almost unimaginable ammount of water, along with the fuel needed to do all of this large-scale de-facto terraforming (aquaforming?).
That...or the Futurama episode where it was revealed that global warming had to be fended off with giant ice cubes from Haley's comet every once in a while.
What this scheme ammounts to is a color shift of a rather small portion of the earth's ocean, for a rather small ammount of time, and enormous cost.
You could achieve the same dynamic by:
A) Using some cheaper coloring to semi-permanantly paint large portions of land environments with an already severely limited biological environment, including deserts, rocky areas, upper mountain ranges, near-permafrost (permafrost is already white most of the time), etc. Longer-lasting and cheaper than the ice-cube in the ocean effect. Could be undone with darker color later if needed.
B) Genetically engineer and feed cryophillic bacteria with light pigment in near-arctic ocean areas. Either have it continuously expell bouyant light-color material as part of the life cycle, or else have the body stay boyant and un-edible by further bacteria after death. If this is feasible, and self-sustainable, we'd have a meaningful, if limited engineered biological terraforming. Similarly can be undone with darker color later.
Those are just two quick ideas - I'm sure there's a lot others that would work to do color-based terraforming. Are there any special reasons why this barge idea would... hold water still above such ideas?
Don't know if you're interested, but you might want to check out Richard Carrier's Sense and Goodness without God. Even if you might disagree with the premises of the author (metaphysical naturalism), I've found it a great read so far on these topics.
Amazon link
Ryan Fenton
I, for one, welcome our happy, upbeat, responsibility-denying overlords! May they ever smile at whatever disaster unfolds before them! They don't need to avoid any prophesies of doom - they can embrace them and enjoy the support of all they bring with them into an unknowable oblivion. Hooray!
It's not pessimism if you WANT the world to end!
[/insanity]
Really though, this article reads much akin to a classic story of political gamesmanship. People generally would rather be lead to a horrific war on words of false hope than actually deal with the uncertainty of complex politics. Labelling optimism and pessimism as stark good or bad is a misleading guide to live your life - one should rather feed one's emotions as they need to, while striving to look at reality as clearly as one can. It'll never be an easy game to play, but it's easier to improve one's outlook through honesty than many would suspect.
Ryan Fenton
If Google were to have implemented a whitelist that was managed by China, and only allow a search based on this, I'd agree with the spirit of these criticisms completely. However, the implementation that exists seems to leave plenty of room for people to find ways to know that they can access real information despite the limitations. Having a common search engine with the rest of the world will allow an easier path to the "grey market" of outside oppinions than may otherwise be unavailable to casual searchers.
Still, this level of "cooperation" with the Chinese censors shows no inherent sign that Google won't be ratcheting up their limitations on the engine even further... I see no limits in place to make sure further corruption won't happen. Perhaps behind the scenes, they exist, but in the context, I do agree with this part of the criticism of Google's actions.
Still Google as it now exists is a nice window in the firewall of China, even if it has been smudged. At least it's open enough for open source projects of various sorts to know how to build a door for those interested.
A legitimate approach to governance is that you should give people what they want, and nothing else. From that perspective, this is cynical, but appropriate. Give people bread and circuses, and you can say you're doing your job as a politician... but how many politicians hold a valid claim to be doing their job as honorable human beings?
It would be nice if I could just wash my hands of politics, insist that the least governance would be the best, and just vote for those who would leave power in the hands of individuals more and more, in light of the constant incompitence of politicans... but I've also seen the affects of what "small goverment" can do over the past years. I've decided to vote Democrat in the next forseeable elections, because at least they seem to propose to, and have in the past few administrations, use public resources to do more than just celebrate their own personal interests. Perhaps then, at least, the Republicans will learn to compete again in terms of function, not just rhetoric. I'd hate to see this last batch of Republicans rewarded for their actions.
Ryan Fenton
Active defenses (such as counter-exploding tank armor) aren't there to avoid damage - they're there to mitigate against the worst impacts of damage against catastrophic losses. A REAL explosion underwater is going to generate catastrophic noise, and will directly kill and otherwise fatally affect a lot of native life - a counter-blast of sound isn't much to compare, even in select "false alarm" situations.
It may help to think about it this way: Automobile air bags cost a lot of money to install and repackage in the case of false alarms. They're even dangerous in many circumstances. Despite that, we still install them as default. Even if they had to emit nature-destroying toxins as part of their operation, we'd still be using them by default - because the mitigating costs of not using them would be a much worse environmental impact for most every person involved.
If the effect became pronounced to the point of actually permanantly damaging large ammounts the sea-landscape that torpedoes themselves would not cause, then we'd have something to protest about - but the proposed use is a very good one, presuming it actually works technically.
What we may want to worry more about is the potential misuse of "torpedo-invulerable" nuclear submarines, if it ends up that there's no realistic way of attacking them otherwise... I think this is only a temprary tool anyway, until better submarine-destroying tools are invented.
Ryan Fenton
I wonder how many man-years it would take to listen to all the music and video that could be indexed. Be interesting at least to find out what the order of magnitute would be - millions, or perhaps billions or trillions of man-years of unique recorded audio and video? It would have to be a game of gross estimation - but it would at least put into perspective how much material is out there, even if most of it is boring "security" footage, compared to the scope of our lives.
It'd be interesting, if, perhaps in a couple generations, we could have a cheap media volume that contained "recorded media, prehistory - to - 2050ad"... if the media that exists today even survives a couple generations, and copyrights aren't extended indefinetly. The idea of an indexing system that can even put all that information into a meaningful context would be fascinating to consider though, if it could be possible.
Ryan Fenton
Hmmm.... I think I'll have to alter my game design a bit...
Let's see, yeah - the main character will now be carrying around an arsenal of flower-based projectile seeders. Upon hitting the target, these "horticulture tools" will instantly spread a rather red blotchy flower, possibly dripping petals. People will be so enamored by these lovely blooms that they will instantly transcend their ugly everyday lives, given enough flowers, and fall to the ground in pure bliss - possibly with a soul-shattering scream of freedom.
Some people will be driving around in horticulture-tanks, which do massive seeding. Upon sufficient counter-seeding, these tanks will celebrate the wonder of the event by launching short-range non-violent fireworks, breaking down once they are satisfied that their flowery job has been complete.
The flowers will be everywhere - breaking down walls, flooding innocent cities, carried by massive armies of rabid horticultualist monsters. Apparantly, many people in the game world will be flower-phobic until properly administered to with a variety of area-affect flower spreaders.
Thanks, California, for providing the perspective we need to make games imaginative, once again!
Ryan Fenton
Step 2, get a single-shot gun on that puppy, and let a local controller make the decision on whether or not the bot can take the shot from a short distance. Have a soldier then reload the shot, and repeat.
Step 3, have a single controller controlling a small set of turrets, each have many bullets, but a very limited firing rate, and low-calibre. These are mostly used for guarding, but can auto-locate and prioritise potential targets for highlight to the user as they appear. Guards are replaced. A speaker system will warn long before any shots are taken, and will require keyed permission before any weapon may be fired.
Step 4, fully-automatic, mobile turrets with extremely basic quasi-AI. Simple patrol routines, many bots to a controller, controller is given the highest priority input at any given time, though each device still requires digital oversight before a weapon may be fired. Speaker and microphone system allows basic use in social settings. Simple anti-theft devices are unsuccessfully installed to prevent black market aquisition.
Step 5, regular quasi-infantry replacement. Still no regular AI, but simple stair-climbing and object manipulator add-on components allow regular use of this cheap, modular little turret. Increases patrol coverage ability of the reduced-size army, and is used even in the most quiet occupied zones. Emits teargass or similar irritant if not opened correctly, and each device has a fairly unique set of openning steps. Becomes the common fictionalized face of the modern army.
Step 6, increased use and acceptance of such tools allow isolated private use of non-lethal mobile turrets. Wars and occupations that used to be implausible even today are actively considered. AI is still considered taboo on these units, but they do get more advanced quasi-AI never-lethal automatic modes with simple yet elegant rule sets for more situations.
Step 7, news reports of incidents and possible tragedies involving these units no longer phase much ofthe occupying nation's citizens. All controlled-weapon-robotic activity are redundantly monitored, and the guilty are regularly punished - the system is widely trusted and highly valued. Simple social-use AI robots gain a small level of utility (rather than entertainment), and limited acceptance. The solar system has a wide array of weak-AI devices, both public and private, on each planetoid. The use of humans in the army is mostly that of tactical oversight of unmanned weapon platforms of many types.
Will the end result be a good thing... can't tell. But something like this progression seems innevitable given existing technology, and the needs of both our economy and the perception of our military circumstances.
Ryan Fenton
AVClub article
AVClub is from the same guys who do The Onion
This interview also features Dave McKean.
Ryan Fenton
She still had to pay her defence costs in this case - hardly unusual, but very much a threat against those who don't want to settle. Yes, they can use this case as precident, but the costs of any court case just won't be acceptable to most of the people here in the U.S., who are living in a constant state of debt. This leaves the threat of bankruptcy as a legitimate tool of terror in the hands of the content distribution organizations, and any other corporations that decide that preying on the weak to settle is a legitimate financial strategy.
We need some corporate anti-terror legislation to stop corporations from acting to terrorize citizens. We already have too much historic and current legislation running the other way around. Of course, we used to just call it organized crime when applied to corporations, but terror as a political label is in fashion these days.
Ryan Fenton
China seems usually slow to use their power - they try asserting control over something carefully. Markets, freedoms, social networks - they can all be controlled, as long as you assert yourself very slowly over decades. They seem to have had some level of respect for the Internet, though it has gotten away from them in many ways, they're likely very used to that with social networks. But, like with America, the exceptions aren't so dangerous as converting the easilly convinced that the freedom of the internet is not as important as loyalty to the state.
Now, they seem to be getting more confident over their control - or else just want to send the message that they are confident. Is this confidence real, is it a false message, or could they be fooling themselves? I for one can't know - but it seems fairly conservative compared to the controls they could exert. It remains to be seen how they will enforce this, or try to make these new rules matter in the minds of their citizens.
The other source of confidence, of course, would be in the inability for outside forces to act against the growing market importance of China. China has done a great job of controlling the markets they act conservatively to control - now they get to reap the growing political benefit of that control. Perhaps eventually, their sheer political mass may allow them to finantially eliminate critics afar... I for one fear the day they begin to truly adopt intellectual property laws. Not because they are an especially malicious force compared to other governments, but because they are humans concentrating a great ammount of power, who may begin to assert ownership of ideas more powerfully than ever before.
Since they're "detaining" people without charging them with crimes now on a fairly large scale, in cases where they don't want to be forced to show their evidence in a public setting, they'd need this loophole to track people who they feel they unfairly have to release for what they feel are political reasons. Seems a consistant, if highly corrupted logic.
Reminds me of the British legal tradition of jailing people without any right to a speedy trial. Seems like we created a constitution in order to get away from that kind of thing.
Ryan Fenton
Nothing unusual happening here! Terrible storms are nothing new - just read your local popular religion book describing a big flood!
Volcanos! I'm sure there's some volcanos somewhere that sprouted these hurricanes!
More completely new study! No scientist anywhere has any real data on this subject - we've got to study for at least another, oh, let's say decade before we can really say anything! For funding... I think it's the responsibility of the education department to decide how much of their funds we've allocated to them they want to shift towards this vital research into this great controversy tearing apart the scientific community.
Butterflies! I think I heard Australia has had a large run of butterflies. If this continues, I can't imagine the destruction that may continue - we must eliminate the Aussie threat!
Retribution of the supernatural! My accupuncturist said something about ghost chi causing these problems. We should be devoting at least as many resources as the whole fundamentally flawed "science" thing towards looking into the many REAL causes of human failings and the natural retribution any number of things would have towards humanity. We're angering ancient noodly forces here, people - WE NEED TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT THIS.
We can't keep going on this path - we have to stop puting our faith in "facts", like these. If we do that, all we'll end up doing is succumbing to the environmentalist myth! We can't do that - we can't just change our whole lives everytime some verification of a threat to our lives comes about - we've got to push foreward and make sure our existing economy never fails to meet the exponential demands we HAVE to place on it!
Nah - iRNA is a subset of mRNA (see your link), which is all a subset of RNA. mRNA is so fascinating to me because of the ranges of messages that can be sent, and what all those interactions really mean. So far it seems that various kinds of mRNA, not just iRNA can be used ultimately to manipulate DNA on and off to help us see what the whole of DNA ultimately can functionally mean.
Again, I'm just a layman on the issues - and find it deeply fascinating in terms of the pure science of it.
Ryan Fenton
Speaking just as a layman, mRNA is truly a fascinating subject
Using it, many, many parts of DNA can be turned off, and countless experiments can be done to find out exactly how we work. mRNA seems to be the scientific advancement we needed to spark the next revolution in the understanding of our most basic mechanisms. It is by turning things off that we can see most of what was hidden to us this far.
Already, it has some medical use, in reducing the further damage of macular degeneration caused by excessive production of blood vessels in the eye. And it's only just begun.
There's a lot of justified hype here. But so long as it can allow for real progress of science, I'll be happy - research in general needs some general PR on the public stage. Hopefully private and public interest in general research could at least be put in a positive trend for a while at least.
In the words of the fictional "MC Hawking", what we need more of is science.
The first priority of damage control for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is not to save lives. It's to mask blame. Not that there isn't blame to go around - but the talking points going around are built to make all blame seem equal. To make it seem like any one of the politicians involved in this disaster had the same ability to help save people, and Republican politicians who did not help did nothing wrong compared to everyone else.
Having a radio stations where people affected could speak their minds openly, or even potentially openly would hurt this damage control.
Ryan Fenton
While I can understand some system in place to reactively deal with potential scams, ESPECIALLY given such a huge disaster as the whole gulf coast... I agree that the way PayPal has implimented their automatic system is rather, well, awful.
SomethingAwful has a lot of (crazy) enemies - it's not surprising that they would get a lot of gadflies out there submitting complaints, even at the cost of relief money going to flood victims. And I agree - if there was any sign of a scam going on, someone should have called to verify the events, or had a better way of cutting the account than leaving everyone's money in limbo.
In the meantime, SomethingAwful really should join another site's charity link, and work to resolve this in a way that gets those funds ultimately to that place.
One example: Amazon's Hurricane relief page off of Google
Ryan Fenton
Clinton got his two nominees, looks like Bush will get his two also.
Just hope this won't immediatly swing the issues of legal abortion and religious coersion too far to the right when all is said and done. Right wing judges aren't insane, but they are at least as activist on their core issues.
Ryan Fenton
Corportations don't tend to do basic research. Basic research tends to not pay for itself, so of course companies won't pay people to essentially search in the dark for unique combinations that will mostly waste money. Public research is needed to ensure that the basic, foundational expansion of human understanding occurs regardless of what the market makes profitable.